Gowri Shankar Subramanian CEO, Aspire Systems

It took Gowri Shankar Subramanian close to two decades to learn that it pays to be master of one trade, rather than a jack of all. “I’ve learnt that perseverance and focus are the best business practices. It is very tempting to want to do many things at the same time. But I’ve learnt to resist,” says Subramanian, chief executive officer of Aspire Systems, a Chennai-based information technology (IT) firm.

Subramanian’s first business venture — which he started while he was at Pondicherry Engineering College — was a book circulation library. Still while in college, he launched a tuition centre and later became a distributor for calendars and gifts made in Sivakasi — a small handicraft village near Pondicherry. “Although I studied engineering, it was never my strength. I was always interested in entrepreneurship,” says he.

When Subramanian started Aspire Systems in 1996, the firm inherited his do-many-things spirit. It had its fingers in many pies. Aspire was peddling a US software product, Pro Model; providing IT services to clients; and also developing software products. “We were doing too many things and that’s why we weren’t growing rapidly,” says he.

That changed in 2002, when Aspire decided to focus only on IT product development. The change in policy changed the company’s fortunes. In the past five years, Aspire has grown at 75 per cent per annum. It has an employee base of 350 people and has 30 clients — most based in the US. “We are among the top five IT product development companies in India,” says Subramanian.

He says his early entrepreneurial forays — and the failures that came with them — taught him important practical lessons in doing business. “I learnt to understand business trends and recognise and build on strengths,” he adds.

When Subramanian and his partner started the tuition centre for Class X and XII students, things went wrong from day one. “On the first day of class, we were not at home to attend to our students. That did it,” says Subramanian. The mistake taught him to learn to keep commitments.

After completing his engineering in 1991, Subramanian went to Texas A&M University to study industrial engineering. “In hindsight, I wish I had done an MBA,” he says.

Subramanian returned to India to start Aspire in 1996. “My partner and I had decided to earn some money and then get back together to start a company,” says he. The two did get back together, but without any money. “We got a few more partners, collected $20,000 and started Aspire,” he adds.

Aspire’s first venture was to tie up with Pro Model, a product company in the US, that helps make model factories on the computer. “We thought it would be good software to distribute in India,” says Subramanian. Aspire sold the product to companies like Whirlpool and the Tata Group.

But Subramanian soon realised this was a niche market and Aspire could never become a big player. “So we began dabbling in software development,” says he. By 2000, software development began growing rapidly in India. “But we realised we were late entrants and could never compete with the likes of Infosys,” says Subramanian.

The Aspire think-tank went back to the drawing board to rework its business strategy. “We saw that product development did not exist in India on a very large scale. We recognised an opportunity here,” says Subramanian. The company finally hit the right note.

Subramanian explains that product development is a challenging area of work. “The market is huge. US firms spend $40 billion on developing products. But a very small percentage of this is outsourced,” says he. The catch, according to him, is that most product companies have a do-it-on-your-own attitude towards developing products. “We have to change this mindset,” he says.

To attract business, Aspire has set up a world-class 60,000 sq ft Global Invention Centre in Chennai. “Here we help our customers innovate and realise concepts,” says Subramanian. Last year, the company helped a retail firm to build, test and launch a product in five months flat.

Clearly, this time, Subramanian is determined to stay focussed and come out tops in one business.

Based on a conversation with Varuna Verma in Bangalore